The Ominous Lord of the Skaven

Chapter 131 What is the age, what kind of traditional casting

After completing the most basic preparations, Ickert can start preparing for the casting of the cannon.

But first of all, he stayed up all night to draw out the drawings, not only the cannon, but also a gun mount.

A good cannon is absolutely inseparable from the gun mount, because no matter the size of the weapon, a whole set of systems is in play.

The gun mount designed by Eckert has fully absorbed the experience of the predecessors, and has directly evolved from the design of the double gun tailstock to the single gun tailstock.

This makes the artillery structure more compact and at the same time the weight of the gun mount can be greatly reduced.

The running frame is equipped with a gun shaft that connects the gun lugs, and a square box for storing shells is designed above the gun tailstock.

The cannon can be adjusted by a wooden wedge to adjust the shooting angle, and the whole can be easily dragged by livestock.

With Ickert's professionalism as a mechanical dog and his usual experience of watching videos related to the Napoleonic Wars, it is not difficult to draw such a cannon.

In the following time, Ickert spent time with the carpenters, concentrating on making the mold.

For the overall shape of the artillery, Ickert must personally guide it.

In the past, artillery had a series of ring-shaped protrusions on the outer ring. Ickert was also very puzzled. It was only later that he learned in a documentary that this is a characteristic of forged artillery.

The so-called forged artillery is that a blacksmith punches out thick iron rings one after another, and then forges these thick iron rings together on a cylinder.

The joints of the spliced ​​thick iron rings will form circle after circle of protrusions.

In fact, these designs have no effect on the performance of the cast cannon body, but will increase the weight. Modern cannons have developed to the end, and there are no such strange things on the barrel.

Ickert decided not to be affected by these shapes, and made it pragmatically, reducing weight to the extreme, and finally rubbed out a cannon with a smooth barrel with old Kent.

This cannon still inherits the thick breech part and is still inspired by gemstones.

However, the jewel activation mechanism of this cannon is not like that on the magic gun. The fragile spring activation mechanism cannot withstand the vibration of the cannon when it is bombarded.

Therefore, it was replaced by a set of heavy hammer pulling mechanism. When the artilleryman pulled the rope hard, it could drive the heavy hammer to hit the gemstone.

The fire hole on the Blue Star Cannon will also be replaced by a magic conductor, and a high-performance magic conductor engraved with a powerful bursting circle will be installed at the bottom.

After finishing making the molds, Ickert and Old Kent resisted these molds and found blacksmiths for casting operations.

First of all, the work of sifting sand is carried out by the laborers of the mother rats.

Due to the huge amount of fine sand required to cast the cannon, this step has actually been busy for a long time.

During this period of time, Ickert used the wooden stick first.

Ickert directly used the large sand box that cast the cannon, and first used this iron rod to pour a large iron rod out.

During the period, Ickert also experimented with a new technique, for which he cleared everyone out of the field, leaving him alone in the hut.

The new process is called "vacuum casting".

In order to solve the problem of air bubbles in traditional casting, Ickert decided to test it with an iron rod first, which can be applied to the gun body later.

The first is to use magic to suck out the air in the mold. Ickert estimates that with his current spellcasting ability, he can barely pull the casting room to a certain degree of vacuum.

Of course, Ickert still restrained some air around him, otherwise using this technique would be pure courting death.

After a long cooling, Ickert finally got the wrought iron rod he needed.

Although it has not been polished, the smoothness of the iron rod at this time is good enough to be called excellent.

The inner structure is even better than the traditional cast iron rod. If the iron rod is painted, it can even be used as a golden cudgel.

However, the method of vacuum casting is not conducive to cooling.

If the heat cannot be dissipated in time during casting, it will be disastrous for both the mold base and the casting.

But Ickert had no choice but to learn from the radiant cooling panels on the space station and use iron armor to make an indirect cooling device.

Next, the long-awaited lord of Ikert and all the craftsmen, the Iron Cannon is about to debut!
In this step, Ickert and others first put half of the wooden gun barrel in the sand box and compacted it, then repaired the mold, and then pressed the other half of the model in the other half of the sand box, and reserved a casting port.

After the river sand added with slime as a binder has solidified, prepare for mold closing.

But before the mold is closed, the mold paste has to be brushed.

After brushing the mold slurry on the wrought iron rod and the sand mold base, they should be ignited before the alcohol volatilizes, so that a protective film can be formed on the surface of the mold.

After all this is done, the wrought iron rod must be installed to leave room for the inner bore of the barrel.

The wrought iron rod itself has extra length, so it can be better fixed in the sand mold, and even protrudes out of the mold box to connect to the external cooling iron set.

After completing this step, the craftsmen clamped the mold under the command of Eckert, and the mold box coated with slime adhesive was pressed together after alignment.

Then turn the sand box upside down so that the second half of the wrought iron rod will not bend due to its own gravity, and then the casting work can be carried out.

In a vacuum environment, Ickert continuously poured the specially fried low-carbon steel from the casting port, and the hot molten steel instantly set the entire mold box on fire!

Fortunately, the wrought iron rod has been pressed on the special iron heat sink made by Eckert. He only needs to cool it by himself, or directly pour water to cool it, which can meet the heat dissipation demand.

The heat dissipation process should not be too fast, too fast cooling will cause excessive martensite in the steel, resulting in hardening and embrittlement of the material.

The speed of this is difficult for Ickert to grasp. After all, he is not an old caster, let alone cast such large parts.

However, the radiation heat dissipation itself can't be said to be fast. This level, Ickert can be regarded as so-so.

Since he didn't know the cooling condition inside, the cooling of the cannon took a whole day for Ickert.

But when everything was revealed, the results were gratifying.

Although the overall texture of the cannons cast by Ikett is not exquisite, it is much more beautiful than the old clay molded cannons cast in the Qing Dynasty, and even vaguely comparable to the cannons cast by steel molds.

The wrought iron rod was easily pulled out of the barrel, and Ickert was quite pleased with the situation inside the barrel.

"This smooth feel! This is called craftsmanship!"

Since the inner wall of the gun barrel is shaped by a wrought iron rod, its smoothness is far greater than that of the outer wall of the gun barrel. Unlike the potholed soil cannon, the inside of the gun barrel is as bright as wax.

Finished casting the cannon, Ickert now just needs to knock off the casting waste to get a good cannon.

Picking up the hammer on the hammer, Ickert knocked off the ugly casting residue, but this action left an even uglier fracture on the cannon body.

This thing can only be worn off with a scorpion.

(End of this chapter)